Accused murderer Gary Ferrell was sentenced to consecutive 55-year terms Thursday afternoon in Clinton County Superior Court for the 2021 murders of 21-year-old Promise Mays and her grandmother, 62-year-old Pamela Sledd, at the new NHK Seating Plant near Frankfort.
Superior Court Judge Justin Hunter sentenced the 28-year-old Ferrell to the total sentence of 110 years of incarceration. Ferrell did receive credit for serving 750 actual days from the state of the offense together with Class B credit time.
Due to a motion of the State, the State’s request for imposing the death penalty was withdrawn, which is appropriate in this case because of the evidence of defendant’s intellectual disability. Ferrell also waived his right to appeal.
On August 18, 2021, Ferrell went to work at NHK during a shift change. Finding both victims in the parking lot, he then shot Mays and then Sledd. As Clinton County Prosecutor Tony Sommer pointed out, both victims saw the other shot and killed.
After shooting Mays, Ferrell then ran his car over Mays after he had shot Sledd in the back as she was trying to leave.
Ferrell told Clinton County Sheriff’s Lieutenant Dan Roudebush that he had a hard time connecting with women. Ferrell said he couldn’t get her out of his head, and he was running out of options on the day of the murders.
Ferrell told Roudebush that his plan was to get May into his car, take her to his house and the burn the house down with both of them inside. Ferrell told Sheriff’s Deputies he had beer bottles filled with gasoline waiting at his home.
The victims were both much physically weaker than Ferrell himself.
Both Sommer and Ferrell’s attorney, Stacy Uliana, both said Ferrell had mitigating factors in his life such as alcoholism, had a lot of trauma in his childhood plus an intellectual disability which profoundly affected his judgment and actions.
Ferrell was remanded to the custody of the Clinton County Sherriff’s Department who took him to the Indiana Department of Correction to begin his sentence.